Category: Orthodontia

It’s been quite a while since I’ve blogged about anything the ol’ braces. With having my insides removed and everything, that’s gotten lost in the fray.

But – good news – I am getting my braces off in exactly 20 days! Can you believe that? It seems like only yesterday my doctor told me my tongue was too big for my mouth.

The past year and a half has been, ahem, an interesting journey. First I had to wear this hideous retainer-like contraption for several months, then I became a metal mouth, but now there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

And you know what? This is totally crazy, but I can actually breathe better.

I mean, I had no idea I couldn’t breathe well before, seeing as how I have always had my tongue. But now that my mouth is big enough to fit that monstrosity, I understand how the human respiratory system is supposed to work. I don’t get out of breath at all the way I used to, and due to the aforementioned inside-removal, my cardiovascular activity level has been fairly limited since May… so it’s not that I’m in better shape. It’s that my airway is no longer blocked. I know how weird that must sound, because it feels weird. Every time I climb up stairs, I am surprised by how not winded I am.

Crazy.

So now that I am at the end of my braces journey (with the exception of the tooth-positioner and retainer I’ll have to wear at night for, like, ever), guess who is starting hers?

Yep. Kate is at the beginning of the same treatment plan I’ve undergone. She is currently wearing the retainer-like contraption, and let me tell you, she is whining way less than I did handling it like a champ. And just a few days after my braces are removed, she’ll get hers on. I was really hoping we could be twins for a while, but no such luck. She was really hoping for that too, trust me.

The orthodontist is loving us, though. I hope he enjoys the luxurious European vacation he can take courtesy of the Berry family. Seriously, my grandparents paid less for their first house than we have paid this dude in the past 18 months. Which brings me back to the title of this post… and now that I think about it, I’m not so sure not being able to breathe was a bad thing!

As you might recall, I got braces a couple of months ago because my tongue is too big for my mouth. Sad but true.

All and all, it’s going fine. The first couple of weeks pretty much sucked my will to live, but it’s continually gotten better and most days I don’t have much pain at all. I’ve figured out how to eat, for the most part, and other than cutting corn off the cob and not being able to bite into an apple, it hasn’t been that big of a deal. My inability to eat popcorn, however, is very disturbing to Sam. Every once in a while he’ll randomly say “Poor Mommy can’t even eat popcorn at the movies!” or something along those lines.

I’ve been following the doctor’s orders really closely – I know how much I paid for the pleasure of orthodontic treatment and I do not want to screw it up – but there’s one thing I can’t bring myself to do.

I can’t drink coffee through a straw.

Everything else? No problem. I have even abstained from red wine. But there is just something unnatural about using a straw in a coffee mug. And I am not about to give up coffee.

So, I just live with the fear that I am irreparably staining my teeth and I’ll have bracket-shaped spots on my teeth whenever I get these things off.

But guess what!

I think this whole thing is working. I feel so good. I can get out of bed in the morning without calculating the minutes until I can go back to bed, I don’t feel the need to nap in the afternoon (and the few times I’ve tried, I haven’t been able to. Unheard of!), and I have more energy than I can remember having since… well, ever. It is really kind of amazing.

I saw my doctor (the one who diagnosed my giant tongue) last week and he said he couldn’t be more pleased with my progress. I’m still on hydro-cortisone for my adrenal system, but he thinks I’ll be able to wean myself off of it before too awfully long.

Oh – I nearly forgot… a few of you have asked to see a picture of me with my braces, so against my better judgement, here you go!

Well… my braces are on. In the past few weeks I’ve found the internet to be void of information/stories about adults getting braces (except Tricia, who commented on my first post), so I’m going to share my experience.

If I knew how to make this post google friendly and SEO maximized or whatever, it might be of value, but I don’t, so…

At least all four of you regular readers will see it.

Anyway, I’ve had my braces on for nearly two weeks now. The process itself wasn’t too horrible – it took a couple of hours, but didn’t really hurt. The worst part was the bands they put around four back teeth to anchor the braces in place – having metal rings inserted between my teeth was not terribly pleasant, but it wasn’t awful. And, the person putting them on said I was the first patient she has ever had whose teeth all required the same size bands, so at least I have that going for me.

They told me to eat lunch when I left because I’d have a couple of hours before the pain set in, so I followed their instructions and hit the Wendy’s drive through on the way home. It didn’t hurt to eat at that point, but Lord have mercy I was not prepared for how complicated eating had become. It was pretty much impossible for me to get food to an area in my mouth where I could then swallow it. By the time I was done, three-fourths of my sandwich was stuck in my braces and I was convinced I was going to have to eat alone for the next 12-15 months, lest I completely repulse my dining companions.

Then the pain set in.

For about four days I couldn’t chew a thing. My teeth were super sore, to be sure, but I had expected that. What I had not anticipated was how freaking sore my tongue was going to be! There are brackets on the insides of the four teeth where the bands are, and there are metal bars along the roof of my mouth and under my tongue – all of which cut my tongue to pieces. I sent a particularly attractive tongue-selfie to Jenny to demonstrate how it was pretty much being cut in half by this device. It hurt to chew, it hurt to talk – it just hurt. A lot. There’s suddenly all this extra stuff in my mouth, but there’s no room for it! My tongue is already taking up too much space! But, after about a week, that subsided too.

Yesterday I added rubber bands to the mix. They are making my mouth a little sore, but nothing like the first round. However, now I have to sleep with braces, my FR device, AND rubber bands in my mouth.

Dead sexy, I tell you.

So, overall things are going okay. This stage is better than the FR device, I think. While I can’t take my braces out the way I could the FR, they are much less noticeable (I had been getting some weird looks) and impede my speech a lot less – a definite plus. It’s going to take some getting used to – I have to spend a lot more time paying attention to my teeth than I ever did before. I have to carry around a toothbrush and toothpaste because I’m supposed to brush after I eat or drink anything, I have to take the rubber bands in and out, and it just seems like a lot. I’m sure I’ll get used to it before too long, though. As I keep telling myself, if teenagers can handle this nonsense, surely I can as well.

Let the face-expansion begin.